


The Anatomy of Love

by awkwardedgeworth



Series: Hippocratic Oath [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: M/M, Med AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-12-19 20:34:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11905713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awkwardedgeworth/pseuds/awkwardedgeworth
Summary: "How about your little resident? How's he? What's his name?"An image of Yuri's face going bloodless when he checked for dilated cervices comes to mind, Otabek stifling a laugh."Dr. Plisetsky's tall, maybe a hundred and eighty-six or eight-seven give or take. Blond hair. Green eyes. The works.... He nearly fainted today."Zarina snickers, "'The works?' What does that mean?"in which otabek is concerned over his resident's little flubs in the ER and tries to settle into his new hospital





	The Anatomy of Love

**Author's Note:**

> ghhh?? thank you so much for loving oxytocin at first sight! i didn't realize how fond everyone would be of a med AU and IM SO GLAD I CONVERTED SOME OF YOU. this is not exactly a sequel but a companion of otabek's journey as he makes friends within the trauma surgery department. i hope this meets everyone's expectations
> 
> there will be, as always, uncooperative children, mentions of gunshot wounds (GSW), otabek choking on his yogurt, and uh one scene where someone has something...stuck in their...ass. bUT IT'S NOT GRAPHIC I PROMISE
> 
> (however, if you like gory ER stories then i invite you to search 'the swamps of dagobah reddit' for An Experience™)

"Thank you for coming with me."

Zarina takes her sunglasses off as they stride into the building, passing floor banners with arrows pointing to a lecture hall where exemplary medical graduates are show casing their research and, in his case, skill set.

His older sister smiles disarmingly at a couple of freshmen, two of them walking into a wall as they turn a corner, "No problem. Thanks for helping me with that cow."

Otabek sighs. His graduating class somehow had gotten wind of the story and had spread it around so even his underclassmen knows. 

He pushes a sturdy looking door and enters a large lecture hall filled with students getting out of their seats. One female, as small as a pin, is dismantling her laptop from the cord connecting it to the overhead projector. Third and fourth year medical students are swarming out of the auditorium like fish swimming upstream, going around Otabek and Zarina as if they're a boulder blocking their path.

He waits until he's close enough for his voice to be heard, "Isabella."

"Hey!" She brings her head up, eyes glittering as she waves hello to him and his sister. She runs down the steps separating her from the stage and floor, tugging on the sleeves of her grey cardigan, "There you are, I was thinking that you and your sister took a side mission to save someone or some animal instead of coming to the expo."

"I'm on time," He laughs and hugs her as the room starts to fill up again. Over near the door, there's a yelp and a tall blond about to exit the lecture hall with a hood over his head exclaims something about clinicals placements being released. His classmates around him let out a yell before all of them are patting their pockets for their phones to check emails, happy cheers and disappointed groans as they clap each other on the back.

Isabella is also looking in their direction, mouth curving up, "That was us several years ago."

"It was."

"Time flies," She sighs. Otabek helps her clear her table, dismantling an anatomical model of the human spine. "My flight back to Hopkins leaves tomorrow morning. Do you want to grab dinner? Zarina's welcome to tag along."

"That sounds good," He says, plugging in his laptop and watching as his presentation comes up. Isabella helps him with the projector camera as they play with the contrast and focus. He rummages in his bag and pulls out a needle driver, tweezer, a thick thread and a fake, silicon model of a skin laceration for his demonstration, setting it aside. Over in the very back, he sees several professors and their TAs settle in their seats.

Zarina settles herself in the front row and cracks open a novel by C.S. Pacat, Isabella taking her seat next to her.

Otabek adjust the clip on microphone and clears his throat, smiling at his audience claps.

 

" _Any hot doctors?_ "

He frowns automatically despite the fact that Zarina can't see his face. He has his earbuds in, moving boxes and resuming his unpacking after he came home from his first shift in the hospital. He already forgot most of the residents' name in his department, save for one.

"Surgeon."

" _Any hot surgeons?_ " 

Otabek lets out a chuckle, "No, but they're...something. And guess what? Leo's a scrub nurse for my department."

" _Oh! That's super exciting, good for you!_ "

"It's a small world," Leo was his friend and neighbour in high school before they went their separate ways. Standing in front of new faces, there had been a moment of shock before Leo had barreled through the other scrub nurses and hugged him, Seung-gil jumping back with an alarmed expression.

" _Your new house okay? You should really learn how to cook, Beka, you can't live off instant noodles and take-out. And eat those vitamin C tablets, I don't want you getting scurvy._ "

"Thanks," He absently says, grabbing his pocketknife and cutting the tape off so he can unearth his book collection. He has the bookshelf set up already so it's just a matter of moving them over, "I had a proper lunch today, I'll let you know."

" _I bet a co-worker dragged you out_."

"...How'd you know?"

Zarina sighs like he's missing something very obvious, " _Who are they anyway?_ "

Otabek tries to think of adjectives to describe JJ, "He's uh, a trauma surgeon. Energetic. Very good with children."

" _How about your little resident? How's he? What's his name?_ "

An image of Yuri's face going bloodless when he checked for dilated cervices comes to mind, Otabek stifling a laugh. He could have sworn he's seen Yuri somewhere before, he doesn't remember when or where.

"Dr. Plisetsky's tall, maybe a hundred and seventy-seven or seventy-eight give or take. Blond hair. Green eyes. The works.... He nearly fainted today."

Zarina snickers, "' _The works?' What does that mean?_ "

"He's interesting."

Otabek can hear her roll her eyes at his cryptic message, " _Are you going to get along with him or suffer through the whole year?_ "

He stands up from his crouch, watching several people going out for an evening jog at the nearby park. He grabs another box towards him and cuts open the tape, "I think we'll get along."

Zarina hums.

 

He collapses in the cafeteria, leaning back on the uncomfortable metal chair as he waits for his coffee to cool.

Post-surgery is always brutal. His stomach is an empty, bottomless pit of agony and pain, his feet hurt and he needs to stretch out his back sooner than later. Otabek robotically dumps some cream and sugar, watching the black liquid turn beige as he tries to remember what he has to do after his rounds in the afternoon. Then a cloud of anxiety strikes and he texts Yuri if he's ordered an EKG for one of his patients.

Yuri's reply comes within seconds:  _You already did. Twice, in fact_.

_Just double-checking_.

"Hello!"

A young, chirpy looking doctor wearing a light blue dress shirt with little white seagulls printed onto it slides into the seat opposite of his. There's a sheet of fuzzy hamster stickers sticking out of his breast pocket and his smile is so bright that Otabek feels the need to shield his eyes.

It takes his sluggish brain a few seconds to form words, "Can I help you?"

"Phichit Chulanont, paeds. You're Seung-gil's new co-worker right?"

Ah.

"Fellowship for Trauma and Acute Care Surgery," He nods, "Otabek Altin."

"In other words," Phichit leans in conspiratorially, wiggling his eyebrows, "Our new  _celebrity_."

He wasn't sure what the make of that statement so he shrugs, feeling his skin prickle in a telltale, uncomfortable way.

They eat in silence as Phichit untangles his pager and sets it aside. Hospital staff coming up to Otabek and sitting with him is nothing new as they'll eventually realize that he's not much of a talker and drift away. It's always like this when he starts at a new hospital.

"Hungry?"

Otabek moves from his salad to drown his mashed potatoes with gravy, "Just got out of surgery."

Phichit nods in sympathy, "Yuuri once put away two plates of alfredo on Pasta Thursdays," With the hand holding his tea, he brings the cup closer to his mouth before taking a cautious sip, "Surgeon Lee used to protein load before the super bad cases if there's enough time. All meat and no veggies. I wonder how he's not constipated."

Otabek chokes on his coffee.

"Trash talking about me?" A new voice asks.

Seung-gil slides into their table, handing the pager to Phichit and wincing when JJ hollers from the other end of the cafeteria to save him a seat, stuck in line.

"You do know what a balanced diet is, right?" Phichit says as Seung-gil proceeds to inhale his food without chewing, "Eight servings of veggies per day."

"That number is absurd, I can't eat that much in the first place," Compared to Otabek's salad, meatloaf with mash and rhubarb pie, Seung-gil only has the meatloaf and mash.

Phichit hums playfully, "That's because all you do is hibernate like a bear when you're not in the OR."

"Speak of the devil," Seung-gil gulps his hot coffee in one swallow and darts away just as JJ crashes down into the seat next to Otabek, his tea managing to stay in the little paper cup without spilling.

"Damn it! I missed him again!" JJ has mashed potatoes and rhubarb pie with pieces of leftover toast from breakfast. He crunches on that mournfully, accidentally spraying crumbs. "Oops."

"No harm no foul," Phichit brushes some off his sleeve. "Good surgery?"

JJ nods, distracted, his large hands struggling to open the little flap of plastic covering his jam, "Two cases of GSW, one distal to the right side of the pelvic and the other one embedded into the shoulder. I'm brilliant, as always."

"So, Otabek, how are you liking it here so far?"

He gives a non-committal hum to Phichit, "It's nice."

" _Oooo_ , get this," JJ booms in a loud voice, excited, "I passed by Sara on her lunch break and she said that Seung-gil  _complimented_ you!"

The cafeteria, formerly at a moderate level of gossip and complaints, falls to a hush. Otabek locks his muscles and refrains from crawling under the table at the heads turning around. Then one person wolf-whistles, and the tension bursts like a bubble as several table laughs, the noise increasing to its former volume. 

He turns and shoots JJ a glare, who flinches back.

"Was I too loud?" JJ harshly whispers. "Sorry, Seung-gil says my brain can't comprehend the concept of inside voices."

"You must be really good if Seung-gil complimented you, he never gives anyone compliments," Then Phichit beams, all sunshine and goodness before tapping his chin, "But then again, you have a pretty impressive resume. Your alma mater was Hopkins, right? I heard you were in the top 3 percentile of your year."

Otabek wants to know how Phichit knows all these facts considering that his resume wasn't supposed to leave Dr. Baranovskaya's office.

Instead, he says, "I didn't think they would pick me. Nikiforov's prestigious in the community."

"You're too humble," Phichit checks his pager as it plays a little tune, "Whoops, I'm being called— need to check on a girl with  _H. influenzae_  in her system. Toodles~"

"I'm sorry," JJ awkwardly scratches his scalp once Phichit's white coat sweeps out of the cafeteria. He's finished all of his food and is swirling his cup of tea with minute movements of his wrist, "I usually talk loudly in the OR and it's somehow.... Yeah. Sorry, buddy, didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

It's not in Otabek's nature to hold grudges, "It's fine."

"Really?" JJ looks hopeful.

"Yeah."

JJ claps his shoulder with a large hand, "We," He uses his other hand to gesture his pointer finger at the space between their bodies, "Are meant to be."

"I'm sorry?"

"We have matching haircuts, this is clearly a sign that we're meant to be friends! MAN! I can't wait to have you assist me in surgeries. Tell me, do you have any quirks? I like to roll my wrists exactly nine times before I cut them open, and Seung-gil— well you've heard it from Phichit I'm sure— protein loads if he has enough time...." JJ trails off, fingers squeezing Otabek's deltoid as it travels down, "Hey, how much do you benchpress?"

Otabek balks, "Uh— two hundred and sixty five?"

"Oh thank god, I've been looking for a gym partner since forever! See, we're going to be great friends!" JJ laughs and tugs Otabek to his feet with a powerful jerk of his arm, "Come on! If they've called Phichit then it means that we'll get called back to do rounds in five minutes."

 

"Otabek!" JJ flies into the on-call room a week later as Yuri jerks in his seat and grumpily pulls the brim of his cap lower to hide his eyes. "Want to get lunch?"

Otabek waves his charts, "I'm reviewing rounds with Yuri."

"Gotcha! We'll eat next time!" With a slam of the door, the on-call room is quiet once again, the third and fourth year med students sitting together on the couch as they giggle, practicing their threading. Yuri tips his cap up a little before letting out an exasperated sigh.

"How can you handle him?"

"JJ? He's okay," Otabek looks up from his glasses, watching Yuri's face come into focus as his eyes adjust, scowling. He'd suggested to JJ that he probably should stop calling Yuri 'Princess' if he wants the hostility directed towards him to disappear. JJ, unfortunately, thought he was being cute. "He's very good at surgeries."

"Pain in the ass," Yuri grumbles.

"I have a question for you."

Yuri sits up and runs a hand through his hair nervously. One strand of baby hair is sticking up like a blade of grass, and Otabek leans back on his chair to stop himself from moving forward, "Yes?"

He flips the chart over, pointing to Yuri's diagnosis, "I think you meant to spell cortisol and not cortisone? You need to be more careful."

Yuri's forehead crumples into a frown, irritated at his own mistake. He grabs a pen and strikes through cortisone, printing cortisol above it. Otabek initials the change before moving onto the next patient chart, taking a few seconds to decipher Yuri's scrawl.

From the corner of his eyes, Yuri clenches his jaws in a telltale way that tells Otabek that he's stifling a yawn.

"Still not getting enough sleep?"

He stiffens. 

Otabek didn't mean to make Yuri uncomfortable, so he opens his mouth again, "One of my classmates passed out in her residency. I don't want the same thing happening to you."

Yuri's face twists angrily. The bottom of Otabek's stomach plummets.

" _OI!_ "

He recoils when Yuri whips his head around to bark at the med students, one of them slipping off the couch in shock, "Quiet down! Seung-gil and Victor are sleeping in the nap room!" 

"S-Sorry!" They quickly grab their lunches, phones, and hustle out of the on-call room, faces white.

The door quietly clicks.

" _Yuri_ ," He sighs.

Yuri meets Otabek's gaze, a slight pink around his ears as his mouth twists, "Yeah, yeah, I know I should be nicer but all they do is gossip about everyone in the department and I couldn't take it anymore."

"Maybe," Otabek says slowly, "Tell them that in a gentler tone next time."

He's learned a lot about Yuri so far. 

Yuri is prone to make mistakes— something Otabek has to keep a close eye out in the future, but he seems to be doing better these days— and zoning out with a glazed look in his eyes, looking at the space behind Otabek's ear or somewhere above his temple. When left to his own devices, he's incredibly sharp and keeps his head high through difficult patients, charming the elderly in a way that Otabek hasn't been able to achieve despite having his entire residency under his belt. 

Yuri's shoulders are nearly up to his ears as he tries to sink lower and lower into his chair, "Okay."

"Okay," He echoes, putting away the last chart and standing up to stretch, "Let's eat lunch."

They bump into a harassed looking Phichit sprinting out of the cafeteria with two nurses on his tail.

"Lunch tomorrow!" Phichit cries mournfully over his shoulder, several patients and staff leaping out of his way, "Promise!"

"You know Phichit already?" Yuri murmurs.

Otabek chooses his favorite seat, a little table tucked in the corner next to a window. The sky is grey outside but it seems bright, the possibility of the sun peeking out still there. He stirs his mac and cheese, "He's a social butterfly, no?"

"I told Yakov that we should make him the hospital's mascot. He wasn't amused," Otabek laughs and Yuri continues, "He put his foot down after Phichit camped outside his office for an entire week. So he's sort of our mascot."

"I sense a story behind this," Otabek raises the spoon to his mouth and catches a stray macaroni with a quick swipe of his tongue. "Do fill me in."

Phichit, noticing how their hospital only has a bland page of introductions to half the physicians employed, had demanded the right to update the page and include all surgeons, physicians and residents of each department. Yakov at first had said no, but eventually caved several weeks ago after Phichit went around with signatures to support his quest and sent out a mass email to everyone. When Yuri finishes, he looks pleased and a little smug as they walk back to the ER.

Nurse Lana gives them a sympathetic smile, handing Otabek a chart, "Bed 6. Rock paper scissors you two."

Baffled, Otabek skims the reason of visit section, face blank when he reads the words ' _anal beads_ ', ' _possible anal fissure_ ', ' _stuck foreign body_ ' and, to his dismay, ' _sprayer_ '.

"What is it?"

Yuri's eyes are cautious as he puts his stethoscope around his neck. Otabek feels his lunch roll around in his stomach as he gives his resident a quick once over at Yuri's nice black pants and maroon button up.

Otabek claps him very firmly on the shoulder, "Do me a favour."

"Okay...?"

He pulls a five dollar bill and some coins from his pant pocket, murmuring quickly into Yuri's ear, "There's a Starbucks near the walk-in clinic two blocks down. Can you get me a cold, grande caramel macchiato with no ice and extra caramel?" It's still lunch hour and he knows that the Starbucks has a line out the door that will hopefully prevent Yuri from coming back quickly.

Yuri squints suspiciously at him, but he takes the money and goes on his way. Otabek stalls by watching Yuri disappear around the corner before changing into his scrubs and abandoning his white coat and wristwatch in the locker. Before he leaves, he swipes a disposable face shield and surgical mask from the supplies closet and slathers the plastic screen with concentrated peppermint oil.

Lana hands him a tub of petroleum jelly with a straight face, "Good luck, Dr. Altin."

When Yuri comes back twenty minutes later, he's shooting Otabek a perplexed look, the ER reeking strongly of bleach and rubbing alcohol.

"...Is your  _hair_ wet?" Yuri steps closer to hand him drink, and Otabek suddenly feels nervous at the proximity of their faces, "Why do you smell like you rolled around in lavender?"

"It's Victor's shower gel," Otabek tugs him away from where they're standing at the nurse's station, face schooled in indifference, "Let's go, there's a head wound patient I want you to see."

 

"I need your help with something."

"Okay," He watches Phichit place his tray down, pushing it aside to pull out a folded piece of printer paper out of his white coat.  Phichit is a spontaneous storm of excitement and ideas on the best days, he's learned. "What is it about?"

"Settling the rumours straight."

He spoons a mouthful of yogurt into his mouth as he thinks about how well Isabella and Phichit would get along if they worked alongside each other, "You can cross the absurd sounding ones right off the bat, I can tell you that."

Phichit grins, starting his first round of questions, " _So_ , Dr. Altin, any siblings? An older brother in the Air Force perhaps?"

Otabek raises an eyebrow, "No. I have three sisters, all older."

"What's your relationship status?"

"Single," At this, several tables around them erupt in giggles.

"Interested in?"

"Surgery."

"I meant your partner preference, Otabek."

To his horror, the little fruity bits of peach in his yogurt sticks in his throat and lodges itself there as his brain presents a slideshow of different Yuris: Yuri faintly smiling while suturing; Yuri napping with a book covering his face; Yuri speedily walking away from pregnant ladies; Yuri helping him putting a dislocated shoulder back; Yuri fist bumping him after a brutal 24 hour shift; Yuri in his scrubs; Yuri furiously sprinting after him to a stretcher; Yuri nodding off; Yuri, Yuri, and Yuri.

"Oh GOD," Phichit flies to his feet, ashen, "ARE YOU _CHOKING?_  NOD FOR HEIMLICH!"

Otabek finally swallows and releases the tension in his neck to allow his lungs to expand, gasping. Phichit sits back down.

No.

No no no.

_No no no no no no no no—_

"That yogurt broke you," Phichit whispers.

"No," Otabek coughs, "I'm  _fine_."

"JJ IS HERE!" 

Otabek automatically sweeps his coat off the free chair next to him as JJ appears with Seung-gil dragged to the table against his will. The distraction is welcoming and much needed as he misses whatever Phichit said, internally having a belated quarter-life crisis about his love life.

"Yo, Otabek you look pale.... Why isn't he answering me?"

"Let him be," Phichit cautiously says before his voice picks up, "Is that a new shirt?"

The questionnaire gets derailed as JJ and Phichit talk about the pros and cons of Egyptian cotton. Otabek shoves his lunch into his mouth, not feeling hungry even though he had a surgery beforehand.

Seung-gil stares at him. His voice is quiet, but there's an underlying edge that makes Otabek shiver, "You better not take that emotional baggage into the OR."

An unclear head causes mistakes. Mistakes in their line of work mean patient death.

"I won't."

Seung-gil's mouth might have twitched in a smile, "Good. I want you to help me after lunch. Patient has bullets embedded into his mandible and skull near the frontal lobe. We'll be working with neurosurgery."

"Okay," He says, head still spinning, "Okay."

 

When Leo comes over, they bust out whiskey and whatever's available from the corner liquor store, chatting with some jazz tune crooning from the Bluetooth speaker in the corner of JJ's living room.

"So," Leo wipes his mouth as Otabek re-enters the living room with cups of tea, "Are you married?"

JJ, who had been texting his siblings in Canada, looks up from his phone, "I was wondering about that too."

"No ring, not married," He flicks out his pocket knife and starts to cut some apples, breaking them into halves, quarters, then carefully cutting away the middle where the seeds are. JJ have fleur-de-lis patterned cushions, so he starts to copy the design onto the apple skin as Leo watches his hands with rapt attention.

"Leo has a ring!"

Leo gives JJ a weary smile but waves his left hand at Otabek, the gold band glittering, "I wear it on a chain during operations but it's a long engagement. We're both nurses— well, he's in paeds with Phichit— so it's hard to sit down and plan it."

Otabek smiles, "Congratulations."

"Thanks. Zarina's married, right?"

Otabek scrolls through his phone to find a picture of him standing next to his sisters, "The ceremony was in Almaty."

JJ blinks at the screen, stunned, as Leo whistles quietly and zooms in, "WOW."

"Wow," Leo echoes, a faraway look in his eyes as he reminisces about their high school days, "They're so grown up. Where are they now?"

"Zarina's a large animal vet, Madina's an engineer working in Canada and Elina's finishing her PhD in the UK," He fishes his phone back from JJ, who has swiped ahead and found a picture of Isabella standing next to Otabek. "Excuse you."

"She's hot."

"She's married."

"Damn," JJ grumbles. "What's the point of being a surgeon when you can't settle down?"

"Settling down isn't some quest you need to accomplish by a certain age," Leo giggles. Otabek plucks his glass away and replaces it with tea, sitting back. "You do it when you find your person. And Otabek, don't think that I haven't noticed you avoiding our question."

"I said I wasn't married."

"Yeah but I haven't seen you for ages! Any exes?"

"...Here and there," He sighs, tucking his legs under him as Leo and JJ latch onto his words with predatory gleams. Otabek spends the next few minutes explaining how his rotations and residency had consumed so much of his time that his exs agreed it was best to split up.

JJ looks oddly touched by the story, nodding and putting his head onto Otabek's shoulder, face red. Otabek grabs his cup and replaces it with tea, "I totally, totally feel you. But any surgeons catching your eye? I'm free, if you must know."

Yuri technically isn't a surgeon, "You're not my type, JJ."

JJ puffs up like a blowfish, "What does Princess have that I don't have?"

Otabek feels a wash of cold go over his head and spine, all hairs standing on end.

"Princess?" Leo looks up from his phone, "As in like, Yuri Plisetsky? That Princess?" 

"No," Otabek quickly blurts.

"Yes!" JJ argues, "It's so  _obvious_ that he has the hots for you, Otabek."

"Oh," A traitorous blush spreads like wildfire from his cheeks, and how could he not react like that when he finds out that  _Yuri_  likes him back? Leo's face goes slack with amazement as his thumbs blur.  

Otabek glares at his friend, "That better not be a message to Phichit, Leo."

"Fine," Leo holds both of his hands up. "Plisetsky, huh?"

Otabek doesn't know what his face looks like right now, but the high has worn off and he feels like the cat who caught the canary, except with more dread and less triumph. Lilia's face flashes in his mind.

"Weird expression you're making," JJ pokes his cheeks. Otabek slaps his hand away. "Why're you so sad?"

" _Not a word to Yuri._ "

"Yuri huh? Did ya hear that, Leo? He calls Princess 'Yuri!'"

"I don't call you Surgeon Leroy or Dr. Leroy in the OR," Leo says, half in Otabek's defense before turning to Otabek with curious look, "How come you're not gonna tell him?" 

"I'm his  _mentor_ , we're supposed to have a strictly  _professional_ relationship."

"Okay but," JJ cuts in, "Yuuri and Victor are literally fucking each other."

Otabek growls, "They're not mentor and student are they?"

JJ sulks.

"Exactly."

He absolute cannot compromise Yuri's residency, Yuri's last stretch before becoming an unrestricted ER physician simply because of his feelings. Yuri put all of his blood, sweat and tears into claiming this residency and he has more than three years to go. Otabek must be  _professional_.

_But he likes you_ , his heart whispers, flooding his cheeks with red again as Leo and JJ squabble over which game to watch between football and hockey. _Yuri likes you_.

He grabs JJ's half-empty glass of alcohol and clears it, shuffling to the kitchen to put some frozen pizzas into the oven.

 

He decides to act like nothing has ever happened. Seung-gil, as he watches Otabek insert a central line into a patient in the OR, is pleased with the fact that Otabek hasn't brought any emotional baggage that he gives him a pat on the shoulders when the procedure finished. Sara's jaws had dropped.

Yet his move is so successful that his subconscious decides that if Otabek is suppressing his feelings for Yuri, Yuri should haunt his dreams instead.

" _How many hours of sleep are you getting?_ "

Otabek presses the bridge of his nose hard as he looks to his phone propped against his mug, "I  _am_ getting sleep, it's just very...interrupted."

Zarina doesn't look too impressed, " _Beka, you look like death. Or a murderer. Is that the face of someone who treats little children?_ "

"I'm good with children."

" _Not with that face you're not_ ," She shoots back, " _Buy some black out curtains or white-noise machines if it helps, you really need to sleep_."

He knows she's right: Yuri had caught him administrating cefoxitin to a patient with MRSA earlier today before insisting him to take a nap in the on-call room. 

He lets out a deep sigh through his nose and shoves aside his surgery notes as a yellow highlighter rolls halfheartedly across his dining room table. Zarina has always been his voice of logic and reason and he doesn't see why he should stop listening to her now, "Okay."

Zarina peers up from her own veterinary notes and studies him carefully.

" _Is everything alright?_ " She asks softly in a tone that reminds him of when he was four years old, sobbing over a broken vase as she gathered the pieces and stuck it back with super glue.

_No_ , he wants to say.

"I'm fine."

" _No you're not, but I'll be here if you want to talk about it,_ " She looks back down and flips a page.

Otabek takes one of the pens lying on his table and spins it between his knuckles.

Yuri is....

He's many things.

He's not the most patient doctor in the ER. He gets squeamish and pale-looking with births, has terrible writing that looks like scribbles and takes Otabek several minutes to decrypt and has a sharp tongue that he's not afraid to use.

" _Whomever you're thinking of, they're making you smile._ "

Zarina peers up at him from his phone as Otabek frowns at her, " _Thinking of a special someone?_ "

"It's—" The pen spins out of his hand, "—It wouldn't work."

" _How come you're so sure?_ "

"I have a professional responsibility."

" _For only one year_ ," She says, " _After it's over and you've taken your certification, all the doors are open for your choosing_."

"You don't think a student-teacher relationship is frowned upon?"

" _Exactly who is your person?_ "

"My resident."

" _Beka, as long as your review of him is professional and unbiased that none of your co-workers or supervisors can argue against it, I honestly don't see a problem. Date him if he makes you happy, settle down, get married,_ " Zarina advises with a wave of her hand, " _You've spent a long time focusing on your career and I think you should pursue love now that you're in a good place in your life._ "

A beeping noise interrupts her. Zarina blinks at the pager and slams her notes shut, standing up, " _Stat farm call._ "

He waves at the screen, watching her swipe the phone as he sees a glimpse of her chin and neck as she sprints out of the room, "Bye."

" _Remember what I said,_ " She reminds him, ending the call.

 

"You're quiet."

Yuri tilts his head up as Otabek feels his back knot, pushing his pelvic forward in a stretch. Something pops back into place and he curls back into his chair. 

Yuri eyes his paper with the glazed look of someone who has been staring at the same sentence for the past thirty minutes, "Yeah."

Otabek pulls some fruits from his drawer along with a paring knife. If Yuri eats, it might take the fog of exhaustion away from his brain, it certainly won't hurt to try, at least.

"Is that a hobby?"

"No," He smiles, "It's a bad habit now. Back in pre-med I used to carve patterns into fruits to familiarize myself with the scalpel," He'd also carried string everywhere. When they'd finished classes early, he and Isabella would sit on the campus steps until a cat bravely wanders over and plays it.

A piece of gold-spun lock falls into Yuri's face, but he watches Otabek's hand with a barely-there smile on his mouth, quietly chewing the gala apples, peeled grapes and navel oranges as Seung-gil continues to sleep soundlessly, meters away from them.

Otabek doesn't remember falling asleep, but he sees a glimpse of blond hair and green eyes before his pager buzzes and the sun is streaming into his face, Yuri's white coat covering him.

"Dr. Plisetsky's with Bed 1," One of the nurses says when he loops his stethoscope around his neck, entering the ER and brushing his hair into a semblance of order.

"Thanks," He calls behind his shoulder as Bed 1 comes into view. Yuri looks up and gives him a nod as a child squints at him.

"Who're you?" The child demands.

"Someone," Otabek brings a chair over from the wall and swings over it, settling his arms on the back, trying his best to appear friendly. Yuri smiles before poking the boy to stop talking as he checks his lungs. "How come you're in the emergency today?"

Children usually like him. This one doesn't.

"I don't  _talk_ to midgets," The child— Otabek takes a peek at his chart, his name is James— swivels his head away. 

"He's taller than you, kiddo," Yuri says.

"Bleh!"

Yuri turns to Otabek as James lies back down grumpily, "He came in with abdominal pain with spots of urticaria on several previous occasions. Today he said that his stomach area was hurting. Nothing is tender and I don't think it's appendicitis," To James, Yuri smiles, "Can we take some blood from you today?"

"Only if  _you_ do it."

"Why don't the phlebotomist take your blood and I'll tell you a story?"

James, after several moments of thinking, begrudgingly allows it. Otabek looks around for some sort of guardian and finds no one in the ER. He asks Lana where they are.

"His mother's in dialysis," Lana looks up from the computer, "Don't worry, she'll be back in an hour or so, I'll keep an eye on him if more patients come in and Dr. Plisetsky has to leave him."

Otabek attends to a high school boy who had slipped in PE and sprained his wrist before going back to Yuri.

"Oh, it's you again," James scowls, "Go away, you're not cool."

Yuri hides his snort of laughter behind a fake-sounding sneeze. Otabek raises an eyebrow and leans against the bed James is sitting up on, playing along, "And why am I not cool?"

"Because I  _said_ so."

Children are so funny. Otabek sticks his tongue out, baring the metal embedded and watching James's face morph from boredom, to confusion, to completely awe.

"WHOA!" He yells at the top of his lungs, eyes wide, "Is that a tongue ring?"

"Piercing."

"AND IT'S GREEN!" James kicks off his blankets and crawls over to Otabek, "Can you open your mouth again?"

Yuri delicately coughs. 

James turns red and mumbles, "Please," He tugs at the hem of his shirt, awaiting Otabek's decision. Yuri smiles when Otabek turns his head the slightly bit towards him and winks his thanks, turning back to stick his tongue out.

James ogles over the piercing again. Over at the nurse's station, Lana and a few others are also peering their way in interest.

"Did it hurt when you got it? Do you have any more?"

"It didn't really hurt, and I only have this one."

"I want one too!"

Aghast, Otabek clamps his jaws shut, "No. This is for adults."

"You can't stop me!"

While Otabek is inwardly panicking about potentially corrupting a child with his tongue piercing, Yuri goes to one of the standing desktops near a pillar, opening the results of the blood work. 

"Excuse me for a minute," James sulks at him, stopping his explanation of the first Pokemon movie. "What's wrong?"

"Normal WBC, RBC, TP, and AP. Decreased CH50, C4 and C2 levels," Yuri steeples his fingers against the keyboard, pursing his lips. The downward tug on his mouth becomes deeper and deeper with each passing minute, sifting through the hundreds of conditions and diseases to pinpoint one.

Otabek gives him a hint, "Has he ever came in with swelling or vomiting?"

Yuri's eyes turn horrified.

"... _No_ , HAE is rare."

"Does that mean that it doesn't exist?" He asks, watching Yuri shake his head. "We should wait for his mother to come back and explain long-term treatments. His urticaria has nearly disappeared."

"I gave him some hydrocortisone earlier," Yuri looks back at James impatiently waiting for them to come back, "I'll ask someone from paeds to come down and explain the medication and treatment options for us."

Lana watches Yuri introduce Dr. Zhang to James and his mother after she's returned from her dialysis, eyebrows furrowed.

"It could be fatal, couldn't it?"

"I don't think his will be fatal," Otabek says, not looking up from his paper. "His swelling is not severe."

Lana gives a noncommittal hum, "Is that Dr. Plisetsky's quarterly review?"

"Yes."

"Good things?"

"What do you think of him?" He turns the question around, raising an eyebrow.

"I think he's hardworking and has the potential," She takes a quick peek of what he'd jotted down, "Inside and outside of the OR."

He presses the side of his index finger against his mouth.

Lana leaves with a giggle as Phichit bounds towards him with a stripe of yellow paint on his cheek. Otabek blinks, turns his attention back to his paper, and whips his head around, "Phichit?"

"Busy?" His dress shirt today is white covered with strawberry ice-cream cones.

"No. Is there something I can do for you?"

Phichit pats the camera he's holding, "I need photos of you and your resident for the hospital's website. Easy stuff: you two pose, I show you the pictures, and I go on my merry way while you go back to what you were doing."

"You'll have to wait, Yuri's with—"

"I'm here, what's up?" Yuri cuts in. Otabek swivels his head over to Bed 1 and sees Dr. Zhang continuing his explanation in Yuri's absence. "Picture?"

"If you would," Phichit beams. 

They look around for a nice backdrop before Phichit shrugs and shuffles them over to an empty bed in a corner and lightly brushes Yuri's stray hairs into order, tugging at the lapels of their coats. 

Phichit takes a couple of test shots and adjusts the camera, frowning, "Otabek, you're really stiff. What if I tell you a joke?"

"You can try," He scuffs the floor with his shoes, not feeling comfortable in front of a lens.

"How do you know if someone's a phlebotomist?"

"How?" He and Yuri choruses.

"They say you have nice veins!"

The joke is not even that funny but Otabek feels his mouth open in laughter as Yuri, huffs, "Phichit! That's horrible!"

"But I got a nice picture!" Phichit hurries to them and turns the DSLR over. Yuri, as always, look polished and has a pearly grin while Otabek has an off-guarded look to him, mouth curled up.

Compared to the copies before, this one is the clear winner as Phichit cheerfully tells them that he'll forward a department email to them when the pictures are up, leaving the ED.

Yuri nudges his elbow, eyes glimmering with mirth, "I have a better joke, how do you say 'fuck you' to a surgeon?"

He eyes Yuri warily, "I won't like this, will I?"

Yuri grins, waiting.

"Okay, how do you say 'fuck you' to a surgeon?"

"'Yes, Doctor.'"

Snorting, he pushes Yuri with his shoulder, getting a nudge back in return as they walk back towards James and his mother.

 

It's winter.

No it's not.

Otabek slits his eyes open, registering the chills racking through his body. He'd dreamed of running around in the ER, Yuri pulling a face as all of the patients are pregnant.

The next time he wakes up, his throat is on fire and he's too sore to sit up, deciding that the best thing he can do is unbutton his shirt.

He only manages the first two buttons before falling back asleep.

Winter again. He takes a mouthful of water to try to soothe his throat, wanting nothing more than to scratch it out of his body and fling it into an autoclave.

It's three in the morning. He texts Zarina an apology for missing their weekly call. As expected, she doesn't respond.

Otabek takes another fever-reducer. 

"Hey, wake up."

Someone is shaking him. He doesn't remember falling back asleep.

Otabek takes one look at Yuri and groans, wanting nothing more than to return to his unconscious state so he can ride out this ridiculous fever. He doesn't  _need_ to feel his symptoms while he's sleeping.

Yuri's voice rings oddly in his ears as he props Otabek up into a sitting position. Then there are pills in his hands. Again. Didn't he just take them?

"How come you haven't ate it?" Yuri reappears, hair pulled into a ponytail.

Dream Yuri is as beautiful as Real Yuri. He didn't realize his imagination was this good.

Otabek ends up in his bathroom for some reason, but there's cold water there and his brain is still functioning well enough for him to recall that cold showers are the best way to shock his system into breaking fevers.

He spots his toothbrush when he steps out. Brushing his teeth seems like a good idea. Zarina would approve.

He still feels lightheaded after the shower, so he leaves his bedroom and cautiously pads downstairs, wondering who the intruder is in his kitchen before seeing Yuri's back at his stove.

The soup Yuri pushes into his hands is tasteless, but Otabek drinks it anyway to appease his hunger. Dream Yuri pushes him up the stairs and tells him to sleep, which Otabek thinks is brilliant. He also thinks that he should take a day off when he survives this fever— his subconsciousness must be telling him something if all his dreams so far are of the ER and Yuri nursing him back to health.

 

Yuri is in his bed.

Yuri is in his bed and Otabek's arms are wrapped around him.

_Yuri is in his bed and Otabek's arms are wrapped around him._

Otabek holds his breath and pinches himself hard. If he opens his eyes and Yuri is gone, it means that he's sane and just had very vivid dreams of the ER.

If he opens his eyes and Yuri is still next to him, he may have taken advantage his resident in a fever-induced state.

He opens his eyes. He swears.

After maneuvering himself out of bed, an easier feat than he had expected since Yuri sleeps like a log when fever-ridden, he feels Yuri's forehead out of curiosity and feels his stomach fall when the skin is hot and sticky.

He takes the stairs two steps at a time, finding that it's already past seven in the evening. Otabek forces himself to drink some water and eat some of the leftover soup, now tasting like broth and vegetables as his taste buds return. He uncovers the towel covering the rice cooker and presses the button for porridge.

His cell phone rings, muffled and stuck between the couch cushions as he unearths it.

"Hello?"

" _Oh_ ," Seung-gil says. " _You're alive_."

"You sound surprised."

" _Is Yuri with you?_ "

"Um. Yes, he caught whatever I had and he has a fever," Otabek should probably take his temperature and grab some ice-packs, straightening out of his squat and hurrying to his freezer. 

" _Alright, just making sure that both of you aren't dead. He was worried when you didn't come for your shift and asked me to cover for him to make sure you were there for the surgery. See you_ ," Seung-gil ends the call. Otabek pockets his phone and digs in his hall closet for a thin towel to wrap the ice packs around, placing it on Yuri's forehead before leaving again to make a call. 

" _Hello?_ "

"Lana," Otabek says, his words suddenly caught in his throat. He braces himself, "I'm down with something, and won't be coming in for my shift tomorrow."

" _Oh alright, get well soon!_ "

"And," He interrupts before she hangs up. "And...Dr. Plisetsky is also sick. He won't be coming in tomorrow either."

To his great fortune, Lana is very professional about all of this even though her voice goes up an octave as she giggles, " _Alright. I'll forward that to Dr. Feltsman and Dr. Nikiforov._ " 

"Thank you, Lana. Good night."

Otabek rummages in his work bag to pull out a strip of disposable thermometer, opening Yuri's jaw slowly to ease it in. As he waits, he tries to recollect the memories of the fever haze. 

Thirty eight degrees Celsius. Otabek fiddles with the ice pack and steels himself when Yuri's eyes flutter.

"How are you feeling?" Yuri croaks.

"Better," He moves forward to help Yuri sit up, "Why were you in my bed?"

Yuri swats his hands away, hair sticking up, "You were the one who pulled me."

Otabek sees his life flash before his eyes. So the past few hours hadn't been a dream— he'd actually latched himself onto Yuri like a lovesick fool and hugged him like he was a stuffed animal. Then, a memory solidifies.

_I wonder what the real you would say if I have enough courage to confess._

"I thought that was a dream," He whispers painfully to his palms.

"You're a cuddler when you're sick."

"I am too, apparently, a giant man baby."

They stare at each other, Yuri's cheeks returning to its normal colour, the pink fading into a less noticeable tint. He doesn't look angry, which Otabek takes as a good sign.

But he still has to apologize, rubbing his face with his hands again.

"I'm sorry about everything. Seung-gil gave me a call and told me that you were worried sick for me and rushed over to make sure that I was at the hospital for my schedule surgery. I know our relationship is supposed to be strictly professional but I couldn't help but fall—"

" _Whoa, whoa_ , it's okay."

"It's okay?" Otabek echoes, wondering if the fever had altered his hearing, "It's okay?"

"Erm, yeah, I mean...I like you too."

 

Healthy and finishing his morning rounds, Otabek is about to step into his last patient's room when a strong grip makes itself known on his shoulder.

Victor tugs him away from the door, singing through his heart-shaped grin, "Emergency trauma surgeon meeting!"

"Wait!—" Otabek watches his clipboard slip from his fingers, tumbling to the ground as several pens roll away. "Victor!"

Victor throws him cheerfully into a linen closet where Yuuri Katsuki is yawning behind his hand, wearing matching poodle scrubs with his significant other. JJ and Seung-gil are also there, wearing dress pants with scrub tops as JJ holds onto a patient's MRI, both of them looking like Victor had dragged them away from changing into surgery.

Otabek warily eyes Victor vibrating in front of him, "Did I do something wrong?"

"I want to know your intentions with Yurio," Victor beams, "You'll take good care of him, won't you? You should come to our house next week and eat dinner!"

"Why are we here?" Seung-gil hisses harshly.

Victor whirls around to him, hurt, "You don't care about Yuri?"

"As long as none of them bring in personal problems into my operations, I don't care what they do," Seung-gil huffs, striding over to the door and beckoning JJ to follow him, "Excuse us."

Just before the door shuts, JJ shoots a wink at him.

Victor sulks, "Seung-gil's no fun."

"You dragged them away from a surgery," Yuuri says, rolling his eyes. He looks exhausted, the tag of his scrub shirt sticking out of the collar. His eyes, however, are kind when he turns to Otabek, "Sorry about this, I'm sure you'll take good care of Yurio. You can go back."

Otabek dips his head politely to Yuuri, taking his exit as Victor starts weeping something about his Yuri growing up. The last scene he has of the linen closet is Yuuri patting Victor's shoulder. 

Yuri skids into the hallway when he comes out of his last patient's room, "Beka!"

The name sends a thrill down his spine. He raises an eyebrow, "Yuri?"

"GS's backed up, I have a patient who needs immediate appendectomy," Yuri debriefs him as they pass the ER nurse's station. Otabek deposits his charts there, "Leo has warn your team to scrub up and we're in the process of calling Dr. Lin to the OR for anesthesia."

"Is the patient stable?"

"Yeah, she's okay for now," Yuri opens his locker and starts unbuckling his belt, "Why?"

Otabek shoots him a grin, "I'll talk you through laparo then."

"Laparoscopy?" Yuri beams.

"Mhm."

"Hurry up then, old man!"

Otabek pretends to growl, catching Yuri around his waist at the door. He nips his ears playfully as Yuri wriggles away and holds his arms up in surrender.

Otabek takes Yuri's hands together into his own and squeezes, making sure that the hallway is quiet and empty before leaning forward and sliding his mouth briefly over Yuri's, "Unofficial rule of Surgery 101: cold hands are bad."

"You need to think of a better excuse if you want to hold my hand." 

"But your hands  _are_ cold."

"And we'd ask you to flirt elsewhere please," Leo's voice travels down as Otabek's scrub team file out of the change rooms with various degrees of amusement. "Save our eyes, you know. Eyes are important for surgery."

Yuri snickers and tosses Otabek a soap pack, stepping on a pedal to activate the sink. Leo hums cheerfully as he washes his arms and hands and enters the operating room with Sara right behind him. She gives them a beaming smile.

Otabek is scrubbing his forearms when he feels it against his cheek, a whisper of skin and warmth. Yuri's eyes are soft when he pulls back, and he gestures his head to the window of the operating room behind them where Otabek sees Leo scowling good-naturedly at them, shaking the sterile towels in his hands.

" _Do the flirting elsewhere!_ " Comes out muffled and exasperated. His scrub team hoots in laughter.

Otabek blows a kiss to Yuri, laughing when Yuri, undeniably fond, flicks his wet fingers at him.

**Author's Note:**

> upcoming works:  
> 1\. trauma surgeons jj and seung-gil (hopefully i finish this)  
> 2\. third part of aria (mostly finished, haven't edited)  
> 3\. ending of forget me nots (updating tomorrow)  
> 4\. jjbella with reluctant wingman otabek (i hope i have enough time for this as well)


End file.
